CANTON, Mass. - The #5 Curry College men's ice hockey team knocked off Salve Regina University 4-3 in overtime on Friday evening in Commonwealth Coast Conference action at the Canton Ice House.

With the victory, Curry improves to 16-3-1 overall on the season and 12-3-1 in the CCC.

The game was Curry's annual Hockey Fights Cancer game, benefitting the American Cancer Society and the Reo Todesca Memorial Foundation. Before the game, 2022 Curry men's ice hockey graduate Mike Pellegrini, who battled and beat Hodgkin's Lymphoma while playing for the Colonels, returned for the ceremonial puck drop. The Colonels donned specialty purple Hockey Fights Cancer jerseys for the occasion.

Once the game kicked off, Salve Regina got on the board first on a Seth Benson tally 4:12 into the contest. 

Curry got the goal back midway through the period on a goal off the stick of freshman Jesse Galassi (Lockport, N.Y.). Galassi redirected a centering pass from Tarek Paranica (Grand Forks, N.D.) through the five hole of the Salve Regina netminder for the tying goal. George Vonakis (Abingdon, Md.) also assisted on the play.

Salve scored once more on a Braden Paquette goal with 6:15 left in the first to take a 2-1 lead into the second.

Exactly eight minutes into the second, Joseph Kile stretched Salve's lead to two on the power play, putting the guests up 3-1.

Just under five minutes later, freshman Gage Dill (Estero, Fla.) scored a power play tally to cut the advantage down to 3-2, with assists to Nick Favaro (Vaughan, Ontario) and goaltender Reid Cooper (Corman Park, Saskatchewan).

The one-goal deficit lasted only three and a half minutes, as Curry sophomore Eelis Laaksonen (Espoo, Finland) converted a wrap-around on the power play to tie the score at 3-3. For the second goal in a row, Favaro and Cooper earned assists on the play.

The 3-3 score would hold up through the end of regulation, and the Colonels wasted no time once the extra session got under way. Just 15 seconds into overtime, Dill one-timed a Mark Zhukov (St. Petersburg, Russia) feed over the blocker side of the Salve netminder for the game-winner.

On top of his two assists, Cooper turned aside 26 shots off Salve Regina sticks to earn his 14th victory of the season.

Next up for Curry, they will take the trip north to the University of New England for a 7 p.m. puck drop on Saturday evening.

#BleedPurple